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The social media network X has provoked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.

Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Company Reaction and Legal Position

XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.

It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Controversy and Rules

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.